The Bell Poetry Collection / Vine Leaves Press (ePub)

This muscular and brutally honest collection of poems appeals to the senses. The poems are dark, some are disturbing, all are vivid.

Twisted Velvet Chains: Follows the experiences of a young woman growing up with a bipolar, drug addicted, Gothic musician mother. Each poem represents specific moments of their life that embrace vivid rich imagery, and illustrate the turmoil of emotions both experience while together. The collection is divided into four parts that flow one into the other from childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and post-death.

Fabric: A rich collection of poems that take the reader on a deep tour of the psyche. Charting and moving across politics of language, Bell explores love, pain, failure and redemption from a variety of angles. Most of the poems sit at the fragile threshold of instinct and meaning, using symbol and sensation to get to the shock of denouement.

Muted: A short story in verse. It's illegal to wear clothes. In some streets, it's also illegal to sing. Concetta, a famous Italian a capella singer from before "the change," breaks these totalitarian laws. As punishment, her vocal chords are brutally slashed, and her eardrums surgically perforated. Unable to cope living a life without song, she resolves to drown herself in the river, clothed in a dress stained with performance memories.

She: A short story in verse. A girl's brief encounter in limbo, following a suicide attempt, after being sexually abused by a priest. God in limbo is represented by She. She has been misinformed about how faith is advocated on Earth, and sends the girl back for another chance at life, in the belief that she must repent for her sin.